What’s better than a new book on the history of rock and roll? How about a new book on the “mainstream alternative history of alternative mainstream” rock and roll, written by none other than Chuck Klosterman!
Yes, the iconic cultural critic and bestselling author will release his latest tome, Rock*: A Mainstream Alternative History Of Alternative Mainstream Music, on Tuesday, September 22. Three days later, on Friday, September 25, he’ll appear at Boswell Book Company to talk about it! The free event is co-sponsored by us, Milwaukee Record!
Order the book HERE. Register for the Boswell event HERE.
Here’s more about the book. Oh, and don’t forget about our Boswell chat with author Steven Hyden in October!
Klosterman asks the question no one else dares (okay, bothers) to: What if The Man in the High Castle was about rock music? In a fictitious universe where almost everything is different (except the songs), Klosterman asks what would have happened if the Velvet Underground had inexplicably become the biggest group in the history instead of, say, The Beatles, and everything about the rest of the 20th century was merely a footnote to that phenomenon?
Presented like The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll if written by Jorge Luis Borges and Patrick Bateman, Rock* intermixes satiric contrarianism and Spinal Tap-ish absurdity with darker theories about what makes art popular, how success delineates perception, and the inescapable consensus of subjective history. It is not, nor does it claim to be, the greatest book ever written about rock and roll. But it’s probably the last one that ever needs to be written.
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